-
Space Week
We started our space themed week by making Shapes Rockets. A super easy activity that encompasses learning about shapes, colors and of course space travel! First simply cut out some shapes from different colored paper (or draw them if you have an older kiddo who can cut them out themselves). Start with a large rectangle, then three triangles, two circles and three diamonds. The rectangle will become the body of your rocket – attach two triangles for the wings and one for the top of the rocket. The circles then become your windows and the diamonds on the bottom become the exhaust gas. While most kids know what a rocket…
-
Sensory Week
My kids have been showing more and more interest in pretend play – so this weekend I adjusted our toy bins to reflect that – removing the textured balls, sensory bottles, squeaky blocks and squishies and replacing them with things like toy phones/camera, glasses, dress up hats, baby care toys, play tools and doctor sets. With the lack of sensory play happening in our playroom I decided to focus all of our projects/activities around messy sensory play this week! But why do I care so much about Sensory Play? It is so important and good for your child’s development. Think about your own childhood or what brings back those memories?…
-
Numbers & Letters Week: Days 3, 4, & 5
We’ve really been having a blast with our numbers and letters week – if you didn’t catch the first post, this is more a preview to letters & numbers since my three are still so young, but were showing some interest. I don’t expect my kids to have mastered much of anything besides exposure, but have been really impressed by just how much they’ve been picking up through our play! Letters: There are lots of options for letter play and toys when it comes to your babies and toddlers – we had this awesome puzzle that came in a case (honestly this is the best when you’ve got twenty-six pieces…
-
Seasons – Summer
Summer is an easy one considering it’s still about 96° here – we talked about the heat (my little one now keeps feeling me and saying “hot”) and spent most of the morning at the splashpad cooling down! We used this as a time to reflect on our summer (helping build their memory skills) and talked about all the summer activities we did like playing in the sand, going swimming at the beach, going to the pool, having picnics outside, watching people fish on the lake, eating popsicles, going to the park etc. We continued to talk about the leaves and how they are full and green in the summer…
-
Seasons – Spring
Spring! The air is new, the world is fresh, the rain is pouring down – while it’s not spring here I had a hard time convincing my kids of that with all this rain. We barely left the house! But we had so much fun learning about spring and doing tons of fun spring activities! We continued our season themed nature letters using flower petals and some contact paper to create the first letters of each kids name (for older kids they can use glue instead of contact paper – just outline the letter and let them fill it in). I cut out a square and then cut out the…
-
Seasons – Winter
We recently got some books about changing seasons and have been talking a lot about winter and fall coming back (especially since my snowblower/shovel obsessed toddler keeps asking when its going to snow). As we’ve been stuck in the house all week anyway with the rain we decided to make our very own indoor winter despite the heat! This morning’s play was cooking ice. An incredibly simple basically mess free sensory activity where we fill a bowl with a couple cups of ice cubes, bust out our cooking utensils (LOVE these dishwasher safe ones from greentoys) and a couple plastic take out spoons that we’ve been reusing from our recent…
-
Music Week: Day Four
Today I’ve been letting my kids be composers! I created some sheet music for them and let them fill in the notes – once they dry Mom is going to attempt to play their songs for them! This was so easy to set up! All it took was a simple sharpie: some lines on a paper and a little dot art! If you don’t have the a set of dot arts (try them they are great!) you could always use a small bottle cap dipped in paint or a sponge cut into a circle. Even a thumb print would be a fun way to create some notes! I…
-
Music Week Day Three: Music Books!
For this theme week we decided to put away most of our usual toys and just keep out our music toys & books. It helps keep things interesting and when I bring back everything else it’s exciting like brand new toys! Plus it gave us room to play and to put out some of the bigger instruments. In the past I’ve also done trades with other parents for a week or so which is a great way to introduce or try out some new stuff without having to buy or overload your house! Creating our music library was so much fun and the kids have loved all the sing along…
-
Music Week: Day Two
My babies are just LOVING music week! It’s been really fun to see my 15 month old really starting to sing full verses of songs and my two year old spontaneously singing full songs by himself or to his sisters. Today he was really into singing Happy Birthday to our youngest who turns one in just a few weeks! Time is really flying by… and while most of our day has been spent trying out our new jump pad (aka mattress pad) and singing our favorite jumping song, we did managed to do a fun musical art activity. We’ve been really working on turn taking with our instruments and our jumping…
-
Our Next Theme Week: Inspired by Darius Rucker
So our family went to a wedding a few weeks ago and heard the Darius Rucker song Wagon Wheel. Our two year old loved dancing to it and the reaction he got from the family crowd didn’t hurt his confidence either! It is now my kids #1 most requested song to listen to (right behind the Elmo Song and Raffi’s Baby Beluga). While he sings the chorus my 15 month old throws in an appropriately timed “Hey!” or helps scream “wagon wheel” for another round as we listen to it while we drive literally anywhere we go… If anyone is keeping track we should be somewhere around our three hundred…